<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Storming Sea by Polyhexian</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136575">The Storming Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian'>Polyhexian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Humanformers: The Music AU [43]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Child Death, Gen, Humanformers, Murder, Music AU, POV Second Person, descriptions of violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:14:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136575</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Brainstorm meets Tarn.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brainstorm &amp; Quark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Humanformers: The Music AU [43]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Storming Sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You are not the one who drowns but the roiling ocean that kills. You are the riptide beneath the placid surface. You are the sea and also the storm.</p><p>"Do you remember everything we talked about?" The lawyer that Rewind hired you is a scrawny man, tall and made of sharp angles. He watches you with concern or with contempt but you don't care which.</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Good. Are you ready?"</p><p>"Storm," Chromedome says gently, a hand on your arm. He's been touchy lately. He never leaves you alone. "Remember. You don't have to do this. You can still back out any time you want and we can drive straight home."</p><p>His home.</p><p>"Maybe you don't have to do this, but I do." He winces and you wonder if the words sting. You don't know why they would, but you don't have anything in you allowed to care right now. You're a coiled snake, ready to strike, powered by a single purpose and pointed in a single direction. </p><p>"You can press the buzzer any time, and leave. No questions asked," the lawyer adds. Strange to think he's on Chromedome's side.</p><p>You ignore him and he sighs and leads you back out of the waiting room and through the metal detector. You can feel Chromedome's eyes in you through the patdown and handswipe and then he's gone, and you're alone in the woods. </p><p>It's a short hallway. In your head you imagined a dingy, rusted metal corridor full of cages, but it's just a hallway. The door at the end is white and has a glass window set into it and a buzzer by the side. The guard walks you through all the rules again and you only half listen. </p><p>Finally, he opens the door. You step inside. You sit down.</p><p>"Well, well, well," drawls Tarn's silky baritone voice as he sits up in his chair, his hands cuffed to the table in the tiny white room, "You're the boy that found Quark, hm?"</p><p>"Man," you correct, "I'm 28."</p><p>"How time flies."</p><p>You place the recorder on the table and turn it on. The LCD screen lights up, timer beginning. </p><p>"Names," you say. Your voice is hoarse like gravel and you wonder how it got so bad so quickly. </p><p>"What, no pleasantries first?" He feigns hurt. "Don't you know how boring things are in here? Can't we enjoy a nice conversation first?"</p><p>"You said you would give me the names of ten more victims if I came," you remind him, "I thought you were a man of your word."</p><p>"I am! But that doesn't mean I don't want to get to know you a little first." Tarn smiles easily, tan skin wrinkling around his eyes. "What was your name again- Hailstorm?" </p><p>"Brainstorm," you correct. </p><p>"Quark's brother, I'm told," he muses, looking you up and down like a rare steak, "I must say. I didn't know he had a brother, and you don't much look it."</p><p>"I'm adopted." </p><p>"Mm," he hums, "Were you?"</p><p>You twitch, but don't answer.</p><p>"Fascinating you pinned him on me," he says, the sound of genuine admiration in his voice making your skin crawl. "I thought I covered my tracks so well. I've never even heard anyone mention him to me before."</p><p>"I had a unique perspective," you remind him. "And I'm smarter than you."</p><p>He seems to like that, smiling wide with his teeth. "So it would seem."</p><p>"Give me the names, Tarn, like you promised."</p><p>"Yes, yes," he sighs, waving a cuffed hand dismissively, "I'll give you your names. But- may I pose you a second deal?"</p><p>You watch him carefully, tense, untrusting. "What kind of deal?"</p><p>"I'll give you your names right now, just like I gave you my word I would," he says, leaning forward in the table, "And you can leave, just like that. <em> But, </em> if you <em> stay, </em> I'll tell you where their bodies are buried."</p><p>Your bones feel cold beneath your skin, a glacial sea in the gulf of Alaska. You tighten your hands into fists in your lap.</p><p>"And what if I stay?" you ask, "What am I staying for?"</p><p>"Why," he says, innocently, "To let me tell you a story, of course."</p><p>"A story about what?"</p><p>"About how I killed your brother," he says. His voice is dangerous, a knife lowered toward your throat. Your vision tunnels and your hands shake with how tightly clenched they are. Tarn waits patiently, eyes glittering.</p><p>"Deal," you hiss, "Names first."</p><p>He claps his hands against the table in visible delight, like an excited child. He sits back, takes a deep breath to collect himself, and then leans forward toward the recorder, carefully enunciating ten full names of strangers you know are dead. He watches you, unblinking, with every word. You hold his eye contact and don't look away, silent. </p><p>Tarn leans back when he's done. "There we go. All your names, just like I promised. Now, where shall I begin?" </p><p>"I'll tell you where you begin," you snap. His eyebrows raise in interest. "You were a deadbeat piece of shit that dropped out of high school and hung around the Quikmart across the street selling weed to teenagers. You were a low life loser with no street cred and one day for whatever reason you've convinced yourself matters you got Skids and Quark into your car. You drove away, Skids fought back and you kicked him into the highway and then you killed Quark and you buried him in the Grindcore mountains. That's it. That's the story of how you killed my brother."</p><p>He doesn't seem upset. He leans forward on his hands, shit eating grin unfaltering. He waits patiently until you've finished before he raises his head and claps his hands together with a whistle.</p><p>"Very good. You've done your homework." He tilts his head at you, the way a lion watches a gazelle as it grazes. "You've missed some details, though."</p><p>"The details don't matter."</p><p>"I disagree."</p><p>"I don't care."</p><p>"Then you're free to leave," he smiles. He waits. You don't move. "No?"</p><p>"I want to know where the bodies are."</p><p>"Do you?" he inquired innocently, "You don't even know these people. Are they really worth it?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"They're already dead, you know." He quirks an eyebrow at you. "Digging them up won't bring them back."</p><p>"Tell your fucking story, Tarn."</p><p>He lights up as if in delight. He's upset you and he knows it.</p><p>"I knew them," he says, "From around. I'd sold some weed to Skids a few times. They'd missed the bus, you see, and I could hear Quark's shrill, whining voice from across the street." You twitch and he notices. "'I can't get home late!' he said, 'I have to let Brainstorm in!'"</p><p>"He didn't say that."</p><p>"Didn't he?"</p><p>"I know your game."</p><p>"Are we playing?" he asks, "Are you having fun?"</p><p>You stare at him in silence. </p><p>"So I wave them over. I tell them I'll give them a ride home for ten bucks. Skids says no, but Quark doesn't. He pulls out a tenner right there. So we drive off." He smiles again as if recalling a fond memory. "As we're driving though, it occurs to me he's probably got more than a ten on him. And <em> then </em> it occurs to me… no one else knows where they are. So I change directions, and Skids notices first.</p><p>"He tells me it's the wrong way. I tell him no, it's definitely right. He argues and finally I pull a knife off my belt and I tell him I'm going to rob them, but we're going to drive out of town first. Skids, though." He laughs. "He was never much of a pushover, was he?"</p><p>"I wouldn't know," you reply dryly, "I barely knew him."</p><p>"Pity. I liked him." He sighs and stretches, cracking his neck. "He grabs for my knife, and he gets it! Quick kid, that one. And that just won't do. So I hit the gas and swerve to slam him against the door. He tells Quark to jump, but Quark's a scrawny little thing. He's too scared. Skids opens his car door and before he can jump-" He raises a leg off the chair, miming, "I give him one good kick in the ribs. Bye bye, Skids!"</p><p>"He lived, remember?"</p><p>"Well, bye bye for now, anyway." He shrugs. "I shut the door. I keep driving. Skids is lying in the road behind us and he isn't moving. I assumed he was dead at the time. And I figure, oh well. I've killed him, so I guess that cherry's popped. And I didn't even get to enjoy it! What a pity." He sighs wistfully and then pauses, glancing up at you with a wily grin. "And then it occurs to me that I have a spare."</p><p>You don't respond. </p><p>"He's quiet the whole way. Too scared to speak much. The only thing he says is <em> please don't hurt me </em>while he shakes and cries in the back seat and we drive through the woods. The sun goes down and eventually I stop driving. I decide I'm far enough away."</p><p>"Grindcore."</p><p>"Oh, no, I was much closer to home," he waves a hand dismissively, "I drove around with the body for <em> hours </em> before I found a nice place to dump it." </p><p>You flinch and you didn't think you would. You thought you were ready for this, you thought you were braced. You've heard <em> the body </em> a million times, you've seen <em> the body, </em> but hearing it from <em> him, </em> not Quark, but <em> the body… </em></p><p>"I wonder, how do you think I killed him, hm?" He gestures toward you, palms out. "Any guesses from the great detective?"</p><p>"I've never thought about it. I don't care."</p><p>"Of course you have!" He leans forward. "I bet it's kept you up at night for hours, thinking of all the things I might have done to him. How much of him might even be left."</p><p>"No," you insist firmly.</p><p>"You're a good liar," Tarn tells you, "You stick firm to your story. You don't hesitate. I can see it in your eyes, you know. People's pupils dilate when they know they're lying. Yours don't even twitch."</p><p>"Thanks," you say in a dry voice. </p><p>"Just like me," he says smoothly. </p><p>He's expecting a reaction and you don't give it to him. "All we have in common is T50 eyes," you say flatly, "Too dark to reliably perceive pupil dilation."</p><p>He huffs a dry laugh, but seems genuinely unhappy that didn't get to you. </p><p>"Don't worry," he says finally, sitting back in his chair, "I didn't get really creative until later. I just wrapped my hands around his throat and I <em> squeezed </em> until I saw the light leave his eyes." He mimes it in front of his chest, a bit awkwardly with his wrists bound. "You'd be surprised how long it takes to strangle a person to death. They make it look quick on tv. It took almost ten whole minutes!" </p><p>"I'm sorry it was such a hassle for you," you spit.</p><p>He bats his eyelashes at you. "Do you want to know what his last word was?"</p><p>"No."</p><p><em>"Mommy.</em>"</p><p>You slam your fist on the table hard enough that it shakes, the chain on the cuffs rattling like tinkling bells. He seems delighted by the reaction. You know you're breathing hard. The room is swimming, has been for ages.</p><p>But you are not the one drowning. You are the storming sea.</p><p>You keep your eyes on him, unblinking and unmoving and you get yourself under control, working your breathing back down to normal. He watches you with intrigue. </p><p>"You're very controlled," he comments, "Also like me. Very nice."</p><p>"I know where you buried Quark's body," you reply, "Now tell me where the other ten are."</p><p>"Is that why you want that so badly?" he inquires, "You want to dig up everyone else's dead brothers for them?"</p><p>"You promised."</p><p>"Yes, yes," he sighs, but sits up and leans forward, "And I <em> am </em> a man of my word, am I not?" </p><p>He smiles up at you, a shark with a mouth full of teeth. </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>You hand the recorder to the lawyer as you leave the room, but as soon as you hear the door shut behind you the world is swimming again. You watch your feet move under you, the world muffled through cotton, sound static and slowed down, passing through a whistling speaker. </p><p>Chromedome is speaking, maybe to you, and then again, maybe not. You follow your feet and the hand on your shoulder and the world moves around you like falling sideways.</p><p>You don't even process where you are until you're in the car again, head against the window, T50 eyes reflected back at you in the glass. </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>